There is a very simple and objective reason why society assigned a special status to couples: natural order (i.e. procreation). Other behaviors which only serve individual self-gratification, whether by a couple or couplet, are not generally accorded the recognition for the same reason.

Of course, this is not exactly liberal, or progressive, but neither is nature nor evolutionary fitness. People would like to believe they are free from those constraints, but that has not yet been demonstrated.

With the normalization of deviant behaviors, we are conducting a grand experiment, where humanity's basest desires are pitted against nature's order. Eventually, we will learn which is the superior force.

In the meantime, with the rejection of evolutionary fitness, your suggestion is indeed superior. We should neither discriminate by couples, couplets, or multiplicity. The only remaining restriction that society has deemed inviolable seems to be conditioned on consent. However, even with that, enforcement can be selective, for example when equivocation occurs based on a violator's stature.

So, in conclusion, the proponents of homosexual coupling need to end further arbitrary discrimination. It's unbecoming a liberal or progressive people.

The problem isn't that civil marriage isn't extended to gays. The problem is that civil marriage sucks.

Instead of including gays in civil marriage laws, or giving them 'civil unions', let's do away with marriage law completely and make everything a civil union. Let's decide what rights partners could have and exactly what responsibilities we expect from them. Let's make dissolving a civil union as easy as ending a business partnership unless there are children involved and then let's make it very, very difficult. Let's have a prenuptial aspect to it so that both parties understand ahead of time what will happen if the relationship ends. Let's have something that can be the same for a straight couple or a gay couple or even roommates.

And let's be done with the farce of calling it "marriage". Let's draw a big bright line between the sacrament of marriage and what used to be the societal imprimatur of those unions and is now just a signpost of society's collapse.

That's not bad. There is room for compromise. Should we permit polygamy and incest, too? You mentioned roommates, will civil unions be restricted to the arbitrary criteria of physical intercourse? The civil union could be another class of corporation, perhaps designated as "cu corporation".

Productive heterosexual couples should seek to trademark "marriage" and related terminology for their purposes while they still can.

This is indeed progress. Ambiguous, confused, arbitrary, but progress nonetheless.

My great-grandfather had five wives until the government came in, abolished the church he belonged to, took the church's lands, arrested him, brought his wives into court and forced them to testify (see the women's outrage Link text here), and put him in jail.

(And the gay rights people cry "infamy and hate!" because someone cast a vote against the gays' interests.)

If these hypothetical civil unions aren't marriage, then it wouldn't be polygamy. It would just be a package of benefits and obligations that are agreed to in advance and that provide some sense of stability to society such that society would have an interest in endorsing them. As such, I guess it wouldn't matter if there was more than one partner. Sexual behavior would be irrelevant unless, as I said, it results in children and then it becomes very relevant. Whether that sexual behavior is 'sinful' would be irrelevant as well (at least as far as the contract is concerned).

If we can't save/protect/return to the traditional idea of civil marriage (and I see no indication that we can), then my concern becomes divorcing (ha!) civil marriage from sacramental marriage.

My only criteria is that there be a genuine benefit to society and that it promote societal order, especially when children are produced as a result of the union, and that we stop calling it marriage and conflating it with marriage. Beyond that, let them work out the details as they see fit.

No proffessor. I went down this road before and got called naive. How about I just say, "I don't care to be preached at by the hypocrites in Hollywood", and leave it at that. By the way, what's wrong with being naive? To think the better of people? Hmmm. Too nuanced for me I guess.

Pfft. Agitprop theatre, written and performed in a perfumed hothouse of smugness. Give it a year and you won't be able to pay people to see it - except, perhaps at the high school level, where they think "The Crucible" is a devastating attack on McCarthyism.

The cognitive dissonance arises when people [falsely] perceive the natural order to supersede or constrain the enlightened (i.e. conscious) order. The objective definition of evolutionary fitness is reactionary and therefore must be rejected as it harshes people's mellow.

That said, there may exist an occult knowledge, which demonstrates humanity has surpassed its natural constraints without consequence. Perhaps that is the case. However, by definition it is hidden from my view, and I cannot accept its assertions on faith.

There are certain concepts I can accept as axiomatic (or on faith), including consciousness or individual dignity, but I hesitate to accept that the natural order has been overcome through artificial machinations. However, since there are two orders which I acknowledge as objective: natural and enlightened, it seems prudent to tolerate, but not normalize, behaviors which while unproductive are not otherwise known to be generally harmful when engaged between consenting adults. There is the exception given to the prevalence of STDs, including HIV, but that applies not only to male couplets but also to promiscuous couples. I suppose they can always indemnify their public liability with insurance, possibly with a premium commensurate to the increased risk associated with their voluntary behavior.

Polygamy is not strictly a reference to marriage; although, it does seem constrained by sexual union.

They don't want civil unions or civil marriage. They want marriage. This is, ostensibly, for the purpose of normalizing their behavior.

In any case, as there would no longer be an objective standard for social order or any other, this compromise will only succeed in deferring final judgment. Each generation will have to decide what it considers to be objective.

That said, from an evolutionary perspective, it seems worthwhile for society to distinguish between behaviors it would normalize and tolerate. Unfortunately, that would require an objective standard, and we have progressed past that capability.

So a bunch of Hollywood actors are showing their political courage performing in a play that is completely in line with Hollywood's political thought. If they had real gonads they would have acted in a play with a story line in favor of prop 8.

By the way, Charlie was himself in a very good movie with papa Martin, The Fourth Wise Man, with Martin in the title role and Charlie in a bit part as a soldier whom Martin bribes to save the life of a little boy during Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents.

Based on the short story by Henry van Dyke, Artaban, "the fourth Magi," spends his entire life looking for the King after having missed accompanying the other three Magi on their journey. Artaban (played by Martin Sheen) had intended to give Him precious jewels and pearls as gifts, but these are spent instead saving the lives of various people along the way. His last gift, which he had wanted to use to ransom Jesus from crucifixion, having finally found his King on the day of execution, he ends up giving to save a young girl (Sydney Penny) from being pressed into slavery to pay for her late father's debts.